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IMPEACHMENT. 



SPEECH 



HON. GEORGE S. BOUTWELL, 

OE MASSACHUSETTS, 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, DECEMBER 5 AND G, 1867. 



The House having under consideration the follow- 
ing resolution, reported from the Committee on the 
Judiciary: 

Resolved. That Andrew Johnson. President of the 
United States, be impeached of high crimes and mis- 
demeanors — 

Mr. BOUTWELL said: 

Mr. Speaker: In opening this cause to the 
House I shall confine myself to a concise pre- 
sentation of the views which the occasion im- 
peratively demands at my hands, giving no 
rein whatever to those efforts and forms of 
speech which other men in similar circum- 
stances have freely employed with great pro- 
priety and power. 

The gravity of the occasion is unusual : lead- 
ing us, as it ought, to exercise great care in 
speech and action, but not inducing us to 
swerve in any manner from the line of duty. 
It is one of the incidents of public life that 
public men are called to take responsibility ; 
but it is one of the achievements of life to meet 
and bear successfully such responsibility when 
tendered by circumstances or events. 

It is not strange that a sensitive, a conscien- 
tious public opinion shrinks from a proceeding 
so solemn in its character, the end of which 
man cannot foresee. In one scale they place 
all the present material and political interests 
of the country and in the other the project for 
the removal of a President who has fifteen 
months'only of official life. If this were a full 
statement of the case, and there were no con- 
secjiiences of evil likery to follow, I certainly 
should not hesitate to yield to the suggestion 
which invites us to leave the President where 
he is. In the first place, the impeachmentof 
the President does not involve any neglect of 
the questions and subjects to which the atten- 
tion of the country is chiefly directed. In any 
event Congress will have time to deal with all 
these questions, and it will deal with them 
undoubtedly in a manner acceptable to the 
country. On the other hand, if the conclusion 
of the majority of the committee be correct, 
we are charged with a grave duty concerning 
the country in all its material and political 
interests during the present Administration, 
and furnishing an example affecting favorably 
or unfavorably its fortunes in all future time. 
The public mind is influenced also by the 



vast powers and supposed evil character of the 
President ; and the larger these powers are 
assumed to be so the more do the people dread a 
contest with a man whose capacity for wrong- 
doing even they have learned to respect. There 
is also a small class, but not an unimportant 
class, of the community who are attracted by 
the courage and persistency of the President's 
course. They have seen him carry on for two 
years a contest, apparently an unequal contest, 
with the legislative department of the Gov- 
ernment in which there has been a two-thirds 
majority against him ; butsuch has been his suc- 
cess that it is not strange that they now antici- 
pate for him a speedy, decisive victory. And 
even his enemies must admit that he has exhib- 
ited talents and courage in a bad cause which 
would have rendered the truth triumphant in 
every part of the land. 

Others have received the impression that the 
suspension of the President would follow his 
impeachment by this House. It certainly will 
not be out of place for me in this connection 
to present the views I entertain on this subject. 
After much deliberation I cannot doubt the 
soundness of the opinion that the President, 
even when impeached by this House, is_ still 
entitled to his office until he has been convicted 
by the Senate ; and I have reached that con- 
clusion in the presence of many difficulties 
which in my judgment are incident to the 
question. 

I know it may be said that it is an extraor- 
dinary feature in the Government that the 
President of the United States, impeached by 
this House, and arraigned and on trial before 
the other, should still have command of the 
Army and the Navy and remain in possession 
of the vast emoluments, power, and patron- 
age of office. There are grave difficulties in 
the way of this view. But if, on the other 
hand, it be the doctrine that the President 
of the United States is to be temporarily sus- 
pended from his office whenever the House of 
Representatives, by a majority of one, shall 
choose to prefer articles of impeachment 
against him, it is perfectly apparent that a 
mere majority might take out of the hands of 
the Executive, for any purpose that might seem 
to it fit, the power which by the people and under 
the Constitution had been confided to him. It 



V 



is worthy of notice, also, that the House having 
the management of the prosecution might pro- 
long the trial for the purpose of controlling the 
Government. Therefore, after careful exam- 
ination, I reach the conclusion that whatever 
may be the difficulty in the way of prosecuting 
the trial while the President remains actually in 
control of all the powers of the Government, it 
is a difficulty incident to the question, and a 
difficulty which we cannot remove. 

1 refer briefly to what seemed to me to be 
the duty of the committee ; and in this con- 
nection I will also speak of what I understand 
to be the discretion of this House incident to its 
great authority under the Constitution, having 
in its hands the sole power of impeachment. 
The committee had no discretion. It was called 
by the order of the House under the Constitu- 
tion to investigate the conduct of the Presi- 
dent and to ascertain whether he had committed 
impeachable offenses. It was the duty of the 
committee to report its conclusion upon its 
conscience and best judgment. But in this 
House the jurisdiction is larger. This House 
has the sole power of impeachment. Its action 
i's not subject to revision. Therefore it follows 
unquestionably that, in the exercise of its best 
judgment and conscience, it may give heed to 
the great rule of municipal and public life, 
that the law takes no notice of trifles. While 
the committee might feel compelled to bring 
here as a result of their investigation a con- 
clusion based upon unimportant but technical 
violations of the laws of the land, amounting, 
in their judgment, to crimes and misdemean- 
ors, it still would be in the power of the House 
to say that these matters are too unimportant 
to attract and engross the attention of that 
great tribunal, the Senate of the United Stales, 
acting in its highest character as a branch of the 
Government. 

I also assume that this House may go still 
further. It may say, notwithstanding it shall 
appear from the record and from the evidence 
that the President is guilty of impeachable 
offenses of so high a character that under other 
circumstances it would be compelled to proceed 
to his trial and conviction, that the evil of 
attempting to correct them in the manner ap- 
pointed by the Constitution is greater than 
submission to the continued evil of his admin- 
istration. And this statement comprehends, 
I think, the entire powers of this House. It 
acts in its judgment upon the evidence first, 
but upon its conscience in its regard to public 
policy whether it will proceed or not. I very 
much doubt, however, the power of this House 
to censure the President as an independent 
proposition, though I cannot doubt its power to 
declare, if it choose so to do, that the President 
is guilty of impeachable high crimes and misde- 
meanors, but that upon considerations of public 
policy it is not for the present wise to prose- 
cute those charges to trial and final judgment. 

It was found by the investigation, as has been 
very fully set forth in the reports submitted to 
the House by the different branches of the com- 
mittee, that this inquiry involves the determina- 
tion of questions of law on which, in my judg- 



ment, the whole proceeding depends. If the 
theory of the law submitted by the minority 
of the committee be in the judgment of this 
House a true theory, then the majority have no 
case whatever. If, on the other hand, as I 
believe, the opinion entertained by the majority 
of the committee be a true view of the law, then 
I am unable to avoid the conclusion that the 
President is guilty of high crimes and misde- 
meanors, subjecting him to impeachment ac- 
cording lo the authority of the Constitution. I 
have therefore felt it to be my first duty, if not 
my chief duty, in the discussion of this matter, 
to present to the House the view of the law 
entertained by the majority of the committee 
as fully, as carefully, but as concisely, as I am 
able to present it. 

The attention of the committee was directed 
almost constantly to the nature and extent of 
the power of impeachment as it exists under 
the Constitution of the United States, and to 
the practice of the British Parliament, from 
the earliest historical times to the commence- 
ment of the present century. The experience 
of Great Britain affords much instruction and 
something of warning in reference to proceed- 
ings by impeachment, but it does not furnish 
precedents which ought to control or in a large 
degree to influence the House of Representa- 
tives acting under the Constitution of the 
United States. 

There are four provisions of the Constitu- 
tion relating to impeachment, and I present 
them together for easier reference, and that 
the views I entertain may be more readily 
compared with the law upon the subject: 

^"The House of Representatives shall choose their 
Speaker and other officers: and shall have thesole 
power of iiiip' i"!niicnt."— .! w. //, wee :;, pur. 5. 

"The .Senate shall have the sole power to try all 
impeachments. When sitting for that purpose they 

shall l> i oath or affirmation, when the President 

of the 1'niti il States is tried, the Chief Justice shall 
preside: and no person shall be eouv icted without 
the concurrence of two thirds of the members pres- 
ent."— Art II. ■■'■'■. :;, pur. (I. 

"Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not 
extend farther than to romoval from office, and dis- 
qualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, 
trust, or profit tinder the United States: but the 
party convicted shall nevertheless be liableand sub- 
ject to indictment, trial, judgment, and punishment 
according: to law." — Art, II, .«"•.."., bar. 7. 

"The President. Viee President, and all civil offi- 
cers of the United States, shall bo removed from 
office on impeachment for, and conviction of, trea- 
son, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemean- 
ors." — Art. II, sec. 4. 

It is apparent from these provisions that the 
power of impeachment is not vested in the 
two Houses of Congress for the purpose of 
punishing criminals, but for the sole purpose 
of removing from and rendering ineligible to 
office those persons who by their crimes or 
misdemeanors may be unfit for a particular 
public trust, or, in extreme cases, for any 
public trust whatever. 

It is true that a judgment by which an officer 
who is charged with an act tainted with crim- 
inality is removed from office, and in some 
cases declared to be disqualified to hold and 
enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under 
the United States, is in its very nature a severe 
punishment; but that punishment is an inci- 



dent of the proceeding and not its object. The 
object is to secure the country against the 
presence of the offender in any place of trust 
or power. If the judgment of the Senate be 
regarded as punishment, then the seventh para- 
graph of the third section of the first article of 
the Constitution, which provides that ' 'the party 
convicted shall nevertheless be liable and sub- 
ject to indictment, trial, judgment, and punish- 
ment according to law," would be wholly 
inconsistent with the nature of our institutions. 

This phrase of the Constitution lias been 
drawn aside, as I think, or rather torn from 
its legitimate connections and office for the 
purpose of furnishing a prop to the doctrine 
that those acts that are indictable, and those 
alone, are impeachable offenses. 

The true and different meaning of this phrase 
is easily discovered. Its office was to change 
the common law practice of England. By 
that law a person convicted by the House of 
Lords upon a proceeding by impeachment 
could plead that conviction and sentence in 
.Bar of an indictment in a criminal court for 
the same offense. The reason of this is also 
apparent. The judgment of the lords carried 
a punishment with it entirely distinct from 
removal from office. Indeed in England re- 
moval from office was an incident or conse- 
quence of the proceeding, while its main object, 
as in ordinary criminal trials, was the punish- 
ment of the guilty party. Hence, when a man 
had been convicted and sentenced through 
the process of impeachment, and was subse- 
quently arraigned in an ordinary criminal court, 
he put himself upon the common law maxim, 
incorporated substantially as an amendment to 
the Constitution of the United States, in these 
words : 

"Nor shall any person be subject for the same 
offense to be twice put in jeopanly of life or limb." — 
Art. V of Amendments. 

The framers of the Constitution foresaw when 
they limited the sentence in cases of impeach- 
ment to removal from office and inability to 
hold office, that persons so convicted and sen- 
tenced, if afterwards arraigned upon an indict- 
ment would plead the judgment of the court 
of impeachment as a bar to the proceeding. 
Hence they employed affirmative and specific 
language controlling the English practice. This 
clause of the Constitution furnishes adequate 
support to the position I hold that impeach- 
ment is not in this country, as in England it is, 
a mode by which crimes are punished. 

The proceedings, under the Constitution of 
the United States, for the impeachment of a 
public officer are essentially and fundamentally 
different from proceedings in cases of impeach- 
ment under the system of Great Britain; and 
this difference impairs materially, if it does not 
utterly destroy, the value of the English cases 
as authority in the United States. Under the 
English system the accused is subjected to 
trial in the House of Lords by processes anal- 
ogous to those of an ordinary criminal court, 
with the singular and apparently unreasonable 
difference that he may be condemned by the 
voices of a majority merely of his triers, not 



less, perhaps, than twelve in number, while in 
a criminal court the accused cannot be sen- 
tenced and punishment inflicted unless the jury 
are unanimous in pronouncing him guilty. 

Further, under the English system the House 
of Lords fixes the penalty, which may be 
death, imprisonment, loss of property, of 
office, or only the smallest fine in nioney. 
The accused can have no previous knowledge 
of the penalty to which his acts have exposed 
him. By the process of impeachment in Eng- 
land greater power is exercised by the House 
of Lords than is or can be exercised by the 
Senate of the United States and any criminal 
court, if the authority that each possesses is 
considered as vested in one body. 

There are five manifest and important dis- 
tinctions between the English and American 
systems in the nature and scope of the pro- 
ceeding by impeachment: 

1. In the United States the object is not 
the punishment of the offender, but security 
against his presence as a public officer. 

2. In the United States the power of im- 
peachment is limited to public officers ; while 
in Great Britain a private citizen may be sub- 
jected to the proceeding. 

3. In the United States the accused cannot 
be convicted without the concurrence of two 
thirds of the Senators present, while in Eng- 
land judgment follows if a majority of the 
lords present pronounce the accused guilty. 

4. In the United States judgment cannot 
extend further than removal from office and 
disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of 
honor, trust, or profit under the United States, 
while in England the party convicted ma}' be 
deprived of office, estate, and life at the will 
of a majority of his judges. 

5. In England judges of the courts, singe 
the time of William III, may be removed by the 
king upon an address by both houses of Par- 
liament. This power does not exist under the 
Constitution of the United States. 

In view of these manifest and important 
distinctions between the English and Ameri- 
can systems the cases furnished by the prac- 
tice of Great Britain possess but little import- 
ance as authority in America. 

It follows naturally and necessarily from the 
distinctions stated that in this country a pro- 
ceeding by impeachment is not a criminal pro- 
ceeding. The absence of the party charged 
does not delay the trial. He cannot challenge 
the triers. Whoever is qualified as a Senator 
is thereby authorized to act as a judge. The 
Government is not bound to provide counsel 
or to pay the expenses of witnesses for the 
accused ; nor can he avail himself of those 
technical rules relating to the verbiage of the 
charge established by law and usage in purely 
criminal proceedings, by whose aid the felon 
often passes from the dock or the prison and 
escapes the punishment due to his crimes. 

An address to the throne would be resorted 
to in those cases where the matter for which 
the removal of a public officer is sought is free 
from color or taint of criminality. This power 
does not exist under the Constitution of the 






United States ; and inasmuch as its exercise 
depends necessarily upon the concurrence and 
action of the Executive it could not be resorted 
to for the removal of the Executive. 

It is unnecessary, and consequently unwise, 
to anticipate the result should the House and 
Senate ever be called to consider the case of 
an imbecile or insane executive or judicial 
officer. Mr. Johnson is mentally competent for 
the performance of his official duty, and the 
only question is whether he has done acts that 
legally and technically are "high crimes and 
misdemeanors" in the sense in which those 
words are used in the Constitution. Recently, 
in a more formal manner than ever before, 
the position has been taken that civil offi- 
cers, including the President and Vice Presi- 
dent, are not liable to removal by impeach- 
ment unless proved guilty of acts that are 
declared to be indictable high crimes or misde- 
meanors by the written statute laws of the 
United States. 

In the presence of the fact that this tech- 
nical theory of the law is a shield, operating 
though not designed to protect Mr. Johnson 
from responsibility for acts which, as I believe, 
are high crimes and misdemeanors, according 
to the principles of the English parliamentary 
common law of crimes, I am led to make a full 
statement of my views of the constitutional 
powers of the two Houses of Congress for the 
removal of civil officers by the process of im- 
peachment. 

In entering upon this branch of the subject 
it is not out of place for me to state that when 
I speak of the English common law of crimes, 
or the criminal common law of England, I 
mean that law as it was administered by Par- 
liament in cases of impeachment. This law 
was based upon the municipal criminal law, if 
it did not in all particulars correspond to it. 
Inasmuch as the process of impeachment 
under the English system was a criminal 
proceeding solely, and in that particular, as 
already shown, distinguished from the process 
by impeachment under our system, it natu- 
rally happened, as in the case of Lord Mel- 
ville, that the lords declined to proceed when 
the law judges gave the opinion that the charges 
did not set forth an indictable offense. 

It is also true that the principles of the Eng- 
lish criminal courts in regard to the admission 
of testimony, the nature of the proof, and the 
rights of the accused, prevail in courts of im- 
peachment in this country ; and this rather 
from the necessity of the case than by virtue 
of the Constitution or by specific authority 
of law. 

This practice shows how generally and thor- 
oughly woven into our system of jurisprudence 
is the English common law, and how it is only 
by violent wrenching of the whole system that 
we escape from its control. We learn the 
meaning of the words "pardon," "reprieve," 
"jury," "bribery," " crime," "cruel a-id un- 
usual punishments," "good behavior," "fel- 
ony," "breach of the peace," and even of 
"impeachment," all words used in the Constitu- 
tion, by reference to the English common law, 



and this, by the necessity of the case, sanc- 
tioned by the authority of the Supreme Court 
of the United States, and upon the ground 
that without such reference the Constitution 
would be inoperative and void ; and yet when 
we propose to go to the same fountain of wis- 
dom for the meaning of the words "high 
crimes and' misdemeanors" we are told that 
these words are exceptions. 

When, as is admitted, every other word used 
in the Constitution and known to the common 
law is interpreted by the common law, I ask 
for the authority, the constitutional authority, 
by which these words are made exceptions to 
this great rule, incident to our public life, sanc- 
tioned by the Constitution, and necessary to the 
existence of the Government? Isitto be found 
in the fact that these are general words and 
not specific? The minority of the committee, 
as I understand them, so assert and maintain. 
They admit that if following the words " trea- 
son" and "bribery" were the names of specific 
crimes, as arson, burglary, and murder, there 
would then remain no doubt that the com- 
mission of a crime so specified would consti- 
tute an impeachable offense. How does the 
case now differ? It would have been impos- 
sible to enumerate every crime and misde- 
meanor in the Constitution, yet those acts 
which by the English common law were " high 
crimes and misdemeanors" were perfectly well 
known. Blackstone in successive chapters 
has specified and named the acts which were 
"crimes and misdemeanors' ' under the general 
head of public wrongs. He has divided them 
into five principal classes, described the acts 
that were criminal, and given to each its name. 

Eirst, crimes against justice, among which 
are mentioned bribery, perjury, barratry, main- 
tenance, champerty, and other crimes well 
known to the common law and the laws of 
all civilized countries as crimes against justice. 
Secondly, he enumerates under the head of 
"crimes and misdemeanors" "crimes agaiust 
peace," such as riot^s. carrying weapons, chal- 
lenges, &c. Thirdly, he mentions "crimes 
against trade," such as smuggling, owling, 
&c. Fourthly, " crimes against health," such 
as selling unwholesome provisions. Fifthly, 
"crimes against the police or the public econ- 
omy of the State," as bigamy, polygamy, nuis- 
ances, &c. Can there beany doubt that when 
our ancestors went to the common law of Eng- 
land as it was laid down by Blackstone and 
selected treason and bribery as two great public 
political crimes, thus indicating the nature of tho 
crimes which by the Constitution they intended 
to make impeachable, and drew from Black- 
stone, or even older authorities than Black- 
stone, the intelligible and well understood 
phrase, "other high crimes and misdemean- 
ors," they intended to include those crimes 
which were as well known to the common law 
of England as were the crimes of treason and 
perjury? 

Blackstone also divided crimes and misde- 
meanors into such as are more immediately 
injurious to God and His holy religion ; such, 
as violate or transgress the law of nations ; such 



as especially affect the king ; such as more 
directly infringe the rights of the public or 
commonwealth taken in its collective capacity : 
such as in a peculiar manner affect or injure 
individuals. Under this last head he mentions 
"murder," "mayhem," "abduction," "rape," 
"kidnapping," " false imprisonment." 

Every lawyer and statesman in England and 
America understood precisely what offenses 
were embraced by the phrase "high crimes 
and misdemeanors." 

The division and enumeration made by Black- 
stone* was familiar to every court in England 
and America, for the English common law 
prevailed in all the thirteen colonies. More- 
over, in the last days of royal power in Mas- 
sachusetts, its House of Representatives, upon 
the motion of John Adams, had impeached 
Chief Justice Oliver of "high crimes and mis- 
demeanors." And yet we are now told that 
these solemn, majestic, omnipotent words of 
the common law were used by the lawyers, 
patriots, and statesmen of America in the most 
important part of the Constitution without any 
present meaning, destined to wait, and wait, 
for Congress to breathe into them the breath 
of life. 

Nor can any enumeration in words meet all 
the cases of misdemeanor in office which would 
be the subject of impeachment, and Congress, 
after a struggle with difficulties which "could 
not be mastered, would fiually flee for refuge 
and security to some general phrase, and can 
any be suggested better than the comprehen- 
sive and well understood language employed 
by the framers of the Constitution? 

Again, I say the view of the majority of the 
committee does not rest, solely upon contem- 
poraneous history or ancient authorities. The 
Supreme Court and the admissions of the mi- 
nority of the committee fully sustain our posi- 
tion. The word " bribery"' is not defined by 
the Constitution, and the minority admit what 
the Supreme Court with the .clearest reason 
has declared, that for the definition of a com- 
mon law word used, but not defined in the 
Constitution, we must refer to the common 
law and there ascertain its meaning. The 
chairman goes to the common law for the 
meaning of the word "bribery." The general 
and specific meaningofthe words " high crimes 
and misdemeanors" was as well known to the 
common law as was the meaning of the word 
"bribery." The decision of the Supreme 
Court accepted by the minority of the commit- 
tee refers us necessarily to the common law 
for the meaning of the words " high crimes and 
misdemeanors," and that meaning it must be 
admitted is not in any degree doubtful. Indeed 
" bribery," as we have seen from Blackstone's 
arrangement, is one of the crimes embraced 
ander the head of crimes against justice in his 
s classification of crimes and misdemeanors to 
which we are compelled to go to ascertain the 
meaning of the word "bribery," and wherein 
also we cannot avoid seeing the names and 
learning the nature of the other offenses in- 
cluded under the general phrase "high crimes 
and misdemeanors." 



In pursuing this branch of inquiry I again 
refer to the provisions of the Constitution, 
already quoted, from which several distinct 
powers are derived: 

1. The House of Representatives has "the 
sole power of impeachment." The word im- 
peachment was known to the common law of 
England : and by the authority of the Supreme 
Court of the United States every common law 
word or phrase used in the Constitution is to 
be interpreted and defined by the rules and 
definitions of the English common law. 

_ By that law the power of impeachment 
included inquiry, the presentation of articles of 
impeachment, and the prosecution of the case 
before the Senate to final judgment, and all 
this at the will of the House of Representatives. 

2. The Senate has the sole power to try all 
impeachments, and the sixth paragraph of the 
third section of the second article makes provis- 
ion in detail for the organization of the Senate 
as a special judicial tribunal. 

3. The Constitution enumerates the per- 
sons who may be the subjects of impeachment, 
to wit : "the President, Vice President, and all 
civil officers of the United States," and by 
necessary implication excludes all other per- 
sons. 

Thus does the Constitution create a court of 
impeachment, composed of a body charged 
with the duty of examination and prosecution, 
a tribunal to hear and decide with the juris- 
diction as to persons prescribed and limited, 
leaving nothing whatever to future legislative 
discretion and action. 

4. The Constitution specifies the acts which 
render the " President, Vice President, and all 
civil officers" liable to impeachment, to wit: 
"treason, bribery, or other high crimes and 
misdemeanors." 

The open and remaining questions are: did 
these words have a specific and understood 
meaning when the Constitution was made, or 
did the men who framed it, the conventions and 
the people who ratified it, leave these words 
without meaning or force? 

Is it not certain from the nature of the case, 
from the provisions adopted, from the language 
employed, that it was the design of the framers 
of the Constitution to create a tribunal with 
all the needful qualities and attributes of a 
court, including a statement of the extent 
and limits of its jurisdiction and authority in 
regard to persons and offenses, leaving nothing 
to legislative discretion and wisdom? 

The meaning of the words "treason, bribery, 
high crimes, misdemeanors," as used in the 
common law of England and America, was then 
perfectly understood. The legal and general 
literature of both countries is replete with evi- 
dence in support of this statement. Could the 
framers of the Constitution have used these 
words without ascribing to them any meaning; 
and if any meaning was ascribed to* thein what 
meaning except that ascribed to them wherever 
the English language was spoken or English 
laws and customs prevailed? But the view I 
am maintaining is not dependent upon infer- 
ence, reason, or contemporaneous history even, 



6 



for a careful consideration of the clause in 
question shows that legislative action would 
prove entirely impotent. Assume that it is not 
possible to impeach the President or any civil 
officer for any offense of which he may be guilty, 
unless such offense shall have been declared 
previously by a law of the United States to 
be an indictable high crime or misdemeanor. 
But will it be assumed further on the one 
hand that Congress may by law declare an act 
to be a misdemeanor which, according to the 
principles of the common law, contains no 
one element or quality of a crime, and upon 
the doing of the thing inhibited proceed to 
impeach and remove the President of the 
United States from his office? 

The statement of the proposition furnishes 
ita own refutation, and all just men must admit 
that in the presence of the provision of the Con- 
stitution now under consideration there is no 
power in Congress available for the purpose of 
laying a foundation for proceeding by impeach- 
ment to declare an act a crime which would 
not be so upon a judicial application of the 
principles of the English common law. 

On the other hand, can Congress by law 
declare that acts which by the common judg- 
ment of mankind are crimes are relieved from 
all taint and impurity and that civil officers 
who may be guilty of those acts are free 
from responsibility? Can the constitutional 
powers of a court established under the Con- 
stitution, and for the highest purposes known 
to it, be thus annulled by an act of Congress 
and the court itself rendered utterly incapable 
of performing its only function, and that func- 
tion essential to the existence of the Govern- 
ment? Is it possible in the nature of the case 
that the Fortieth Congress by law may limit 
and control the House or Senate of a succeed- 
ing Congress in the discharge of duties imposed 
upon them by the Constitution ? Is it not, then, 
true, if the power to legislate on the subject be 
admitted, that Congress from the necessity of 
the case can neither enlarge nor limit the 
meaning or scope of the words used in the 
Constitution? 

liouest and constitutional legislation would 
present the subject finally as it now appears in 
the Constitution itself. Those acts, and those 
only, would be "high crimes" which are so 
according to the principles of the English par- 
liamentary common law of crimes ; and those 
acts would still be " misdemeanors " which are 
so by virtue of the same principles. Thus, 
upon an analysis of the subject, are we com- 
pelled to fall back upon the phraseology and 
substance of the constitutional provision we 
are considering ; and most certainly we should 
be compelled by experience to fall back upon 
its substance and phraseology if legislative 
action were undertaken. 

In continuing the analysis we see yet more 
clearly how futile and dangerous all attempts 
to legislate upon this subject will iu the end 
prove. Treason is one of the offenses for which 
civil officers are liable to impeachment. This 
eriine is defined by the Constitution, and will it 
be contended that it is in the power of Congress 



to enlarge, limit, or in any degree to qualify the 
jurisdiction of the Senate when sitting as a 
court for the trial of the President or other 
officer charged with that crime? 

If it be said that the circumstance that this 
crime is defined in the Constitution has deprived 
Congress of the power to legislate upon this 
branch of the subject, and that its authority 
is therefore limited to " bribery and other high 
crimes and misdemeanors," it may be stated 
in answer that the Constitution did not create 
the crime of treason, but simply limited the 
definition of the crime to a single offense; 
while by the common law of England it in- 
cluded several distinct offenses. It should be 
observed, however, that by the English law 
every form of treason was a crime or mis- 
demeanor, and while by the Constitution of 
the United States only one of these forms is 
declared to be treason the other acts still rest 
in the class of crimes and misdemeanors. 

Bribery was an offense as well known to and 
as well defined by the common law of England 
at the time the Constitution was framed as was 
the crime of treason. The phrase " high 
crimes and misdemeanors" had been in use 
in the courts and in the books of England for 
centuries. 

Legislative wisdom is and ever must be in- 
capable of rendering the meaning of these 
words more certain than it is when subjected 
to the principles which lie at the foundation 
of the English common law. The Constitu- 
tion makes the President and all civil officers 
liable to impeachment if guilty of bribery ; is 
it to be assumed that this power in the Consti- 
tution was to remain dormant until Congress 
by law should declare what bribery is, and 
what acts are acts of bribery ; and also pro- 
vide that bribery as defined by law shall be an 
indictable offeuse? If it had happened, for 
example, that an aspirant for the Presidency 
at the organization of the Government had 
bribed a sufficient number of electors to secure 
his own election and tu defeat the choice of the 
people, would the country have been compelled 
to submit to the administration of such a man 
for four 'years, or would the House of Repre- 
sentatives and Senate have proceeded under 
tlie authority conferred by the Constitution to 
impeach, to try, and remove him from office? 
And be it remembered that although bribery is 
named in the Constitution it was not, when the 
Government was organized in 1?89, an indict- 
able offense, which the minority of the commit- 
tee say it must be before it can be impeachable. 
The Government was in existence from the 4th 
day of March, 17S'.), to the &0th day of April, 
1790, before a crimes act was passed, and dur- 
ing that time neither treason nor bribery was 
indictable by law in any court of the United 
States. Will anybody say in view of this pro- 
vision of the Constitution that our fathers 
would have sat silently and submitted to the * 
administration of a man who was elected by 
bribery, but whose offense was by no law of the 
land indictable ? 

Still further, it is constitutionally impossible 
for Congress to declare that certain offenses 



are crimes and misdemeanors everywhere and 
under all circumstances within the territory of 
the United States. For example, the power 
of Congress to provide for the punishment of 
the crime of murder is limited to the forts and 
arsenals, to the District of Columbia, and to 
the Territories of the Union. Upon the the- 
ory that those offenses only are impeachable 
which are made crimes by the laws of the Uni- 
ted States a civil officer might be guilty of mur- 
der within the jurisdiction of a State where the 
crime is not and cannot be punishable by any 
law of Congress, and the House and Senate 
would have no power to arraign, try, and 
remove him from office. Practically it would 
be found impossible to anticipate by specific 
legislation all cases of misconduct which will 
occur in the career of criminal men. At the 
present moment we have no law which declares 
that it shall be a high crime or misdemeanor 
for the President to decline to recognize the 
Congress of the United States, and yet should 
he deny its lawful and constitutional existence 
and authority, and thus virtually dissolve the 
Government, would the House and Senate be 
impotent and unable to proceed by process 
of impeachment to secure his removal from 
office? 

The theory I am combating is virtually the 
end of the Government. It offers substan- 
tially free license to executive and judicial offi- 
cers. Legislative wisdom has not yet attempted 
to declare by statutory provisions what acts 
executive and judicial officers may not law- 
fully do, but when such wisdom shall have been 
exercised for a century and exhausted the 
President of the United States may examine and 
avoid all statutes of restraint or inhibition, and 
then fearlessly and successfully usurp power, 
oppress the people, encourage discord, promote 
rebelliou, corrupt public officers, humiliate and 
disgrace the nation by multitudinous acts of 
wrong, and there will be neither redress nor re- 
lief. Thetheory thatwe mustlookto the statutes 
of the United States alone, and that the Presi- 
dent and other officers, as long as they do not 
violate the criminal statute laws of the country, 
may do any act or thing, however detrimental 
to the public interests, however contrary to the 
public morals, however heinous in its nature, 
and still retain their offices, is a theory so at 
variance with civilization, with the principles 
of law, and with the existence of the Govern- 
ment, that it ought not to receive our support 
or countenance unless the language of the 
Constitution imperatively requires us to yield 
to its authority. 

The history of the Government shows con- 
clusively that this theory was not entertained 
by its founders. The men who framed the 
Constitution were for a quarter of a century in 
the Government of the country, and they 
never took one step or suggested that one step 
should be taken for the purpose of rendering 
the power of impeachment of practical value 
if it be true that no act, however base, danger- 
ous, or criminal, is a crime or misdemeanor in 
the contemplation of the Constitution unless it 
has been previously so declared by an act of 



Congress and made an indictable offense. The 
omission upon their part to legislate upon the 
subject, with the knowledge they had as to the 
meaning of the Constitution, would have been 
criminal in character if they entertained the 
opinion that legislation was necessary in order 
to render the power of removal by impeach- 
ment of any practical value for the preserva- 
tion of the liberties of the country. 

I now call the attention of the House to the 
opinion of the Supreme Court given in 1812 
touching the jurisdiction of the courts of the 
United States, in which they held that the 
courts have no common- law criminal juris- 
diction, and that such jurisdiction cannot be 
taken unless authorized by an act of Congress. 
The opinion was given in a case which was 
not fully argued, and it was not the unanimous 
opinion of the court. But I have no occasion 
to question its soundness. The courts of the 
United States under the Constitution have no 
common-law criminal jurisdiction, and for the 
reason that the Constitution has not conferred 
it upon them. The Senate of the United 
States, as I maintain, as a high court of im- 
peachment, has the power to deprive the Pres- 
ident or any civil officer of his office who lias 
been guilty of treason, bribery, or other high 
crime or misdemeanor, because the Constitu- 
tion has conferred this power upon the Senate. 
The Supreme Court in the case referred to held 
that the law must first make an act a crime, 
affix a punishment to it, and declare the court 
that shall have jurisdiction of the offense. All 
these conditions are satisfied in the provisions 
of the Constitution by which the Senate is con- 
stituted a tribunal with the sole power to try 
impeachments. The officers liable to impeach- 
ment and the offenses rendering them so liable 
are distinctly specified. 

Is it not reasonably certain that if the words 
"bribery or other high crimes and misdemean- 
ors' ' were not to be interpreted by the rule of the 
common law their meaning would have been 
limited in the Constitution itself, as was done 
in the case of treason, or that specific authority 
would have been given to Congress to act on 
the subject ? The simple addition to the phrase 
"high crimes aud misdemeanors" of the words 
"as may by law be prescribed" would have 
settled the question in favor of the theory 
which gives to Congress authority to change 
the powers of the Senate as a court of 
impeachment according to its own changing 
opinions. 

I rest firmly in the conclusion that the phrase 
"bribery or other high crimes and misdemean- 
ors" is used in the Constitution in accord- 
ance with and subject to the rule of reason, 
which Kes at the foundation of the English 
common law. This rule is that no person in 
office shall do an act contra bo?ws mores, con- 
trary to good morals ; and subjecting the provis- 
ions of the Constitution concerning impeach- 
ment to that rule the result is that neither the 
President, the Vice President, nor any civil offi- 
cer of the United States can lawfully do any act, 
either official or otherwise, which in a large, a 
public sense is contrary to the good morals of 



8 



the office lie holds. Misconduct in office, mis- 
behavior in office, misdemeanor in office, are 
equivalent terms. It follows also that the 
scope of the rule of the common law is not 
to be ascertained by reference to cases which 
have arisen either in Great Britain or in the 
States of the United States where the English 
common law of crimes exist, however numer- 
ous such cases may be. The principle of the 
English common law furnishes not only the 
foundation for the cases which have arisen, 
but for others that may arise and to which the 
same great principles of law must be applied. 

This principle has been elucidated by the 
most eminent writers of England and of this 
country, and it is especially recognized, applied, 
and elaborated by one of the great jurists of 
modern times. 1 refer to Chief Justice Shaw, 
of the supreme court of Massachusetts. 

By the Constitution this House may deter- 
mine the rule of its proceedings, punish its 
members for disorderly behavior, and with the 
concurrence of two thirds expel a member. 
But are we to sit here without authority to pro- 
tect ourselves until those acts which amount to 
disorderly behavior are enumerated in the laws 
of the country or by the rules of the House ? 
Our security is first in the reason and con- 
science with which we are individually guided 
and warned ; and then in the reason and con- 
science of our judges applied in the light of the 
principle which lies at the foundation of the com- 
mon law, municipal, public, and parliamentary. 
Upon the view of the Constitution which I 
present and maintain honest public officers are 
safe in all their rights. In the nature of the 
case, a civil officer, guided by his conscience 
and judgment, will do no act which the Senate 
of the United States upon its conscience and 
judgment, and by a two-thirds majority of the 
members present, will pronounce a high crime 
and misdemeanor. On the* other hand, the 
theory that I aim to refute seems to me to be 
fraught with danger to civil officers and with 
peril to the Government. 

With this view of the law I turn now to the 
authorities, and then I shall pass briefly over 
the precedents which the history of this coun- 
try furnishes. The great authority upon im- 
peachment, whose writings are, indeed, the 
result of all English experience, all English 
law, and all English learning upon the subject, 
is that of Wooddeson, who was the first English 
law writer, as far as I know, who treated the 
subject of impeachment upon broad, general 
grounds of public policy. A part of the extract 
which 1 now read has been furnished, I believe, 
in both the majority and minority reports of the 
committee, but I enlarge the quotation as 
stating more fully the ground upon which I 
Btand in the opinions i entertain upon this 
question. He says : 

"All the king's subjects are impeachable in Par- 
liament, but with this distinction: that a peer maybe 
so accused before his peers of any crime, a commoner 
(though perbaps it was formerly otherwise) can now 
be charged with misdemeanors only, not witn any 
capital offense. For when Fitzharris, in the year 16S1, 
was impeached of high treason, the lords remitted the 
prosecution to the inferior court, though it greatly 
exasperated the accusers. Such kind of misdeed?, 



however, aspeeuliarly injure the Commonwealth by 
the abuse of high offices of trust are the most proper 
and have been the most usual ground for this kind 
of prosecution. 

"Thus, if a lord chancellor be guilty of bribery or of 
acting grossly contrary to the duty of his office, if the 
judges mislead their sovereign by unconstitutional 
opinions, if any other magistrate attempt to subvert 
tho fundamental laws or introduce arbitrary power, 
these have been deemed cases adapted to parlia- 
mentary inquiry and decision. 

"So where a lord chancel lor has been thought to have 
put the seal to an ignominious treaty, a lord admiral 
to neglect the safeguard of t tie sea, an embassador t» 
betray his trust, a privy councilor to propound or 
support dishonorable measures, or a confidential 
adviser of his sovereign to obtain exorbitant grants 
or incompatible employments — these imputations 
have properly occasioned impeachments; because 
it is apparent how little the 7 ordinary tribunals are 
calculated to take cognizance of such offenses, er 
to investigate and reform the general polity of tho 
State." — Wooddeson'a Lectures, edition of 17'J2, Dub- 
lin, vol. 2, lecture 40. 

In accordance with this learned and clear 
opinion of. the great commentator upon the 
English law are the authorities on this side of 
the Atlantic, beginning with Hamilton, who in 
the sixty-fifth number of the Federalist says, 
speaking of the power of the Senate in the 
matter of impeachment: 

"The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses 
which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, 
in other words, from the abuse or violation of some 
public trust."— Federalist, No. 05. 

Nathan Dane, in his Digest of American 
Law, says: 

"Judge Chase in his defense under the first articlo 
of impeachment contended that no civil officer of 
the United States can be impeached except for some 
offense tor which ho may be indicted at law; and that 
no evidence can be received oh an impeachment 
except such as on an indictment at law for the same 
offense would bo admissible. This ground taken by 
the respondent occupied a large portion of tho argu- 
ments on both sides; but his counsel did not insist on 
this groun 1, and most clearly it was not tenable. It 
was agreed on all hands that ho was charged with 
misdemeanor in office; that, a misdemeanor in office 
and misbehavior in office mean the same thing." 

* * * * * * * * * * * 

'.'Suppose the President of tho United States were 
to attempt to influence tho votes of members of Con- 
gress upon a particular question, and should promise 
them offices, he would bo impeachable clearly, but 
surely not indictable." • * * * * 

"Now, what is good behavior in office is certainly 
a very general and indefinite question, not defined 
by statute, Constitution, or adjudged cases, nor can it 
be in the nature of things; but what is good behavior 
or not in office must ever essentially depend on tho 
actions of the officer and circumstances of the par- 
ticular case, too numerous and various to be reduced 
within any known in the proper souso of the expres- 
sion."— Chap. 222, articles 8 and 9. 

It follows from these authorities that those 
acts are especially impeachable offenses which 
affect the welfare or existence of the State, 
or render the officer unlit for the discharge of 
his duties. It does not follow that every act 
which is a crime at law is therefore impeach- 
able, or that impeachable offenses are indict- 
able. 

Chief Justice Story says, in his various para- 
graphs on this subject : 

"However much it may fall within the political 
theories of certain statesmen and jurists to deny tho 
existence of a Common luw belonging touhd applicable 
to the nation in ordinary cases, no ouo lias yet been 
bold enough to nssertttiat tho power of impeachment 
is limited to offenses positively defined in the stat- 
ute-book of tho Union as impeachable high crimes 
and misdenioauors." 



9 



Again : 

"It seems to be the settled doctrine of the high 
Court of impeachment that, though the common law 
cannot be the foundation of a jurisdiction notgiven 
by the Constitution or laws, tbat jurisdiction, when 
given, attaches, and is to be exercised according to 
the rules of the common law, and that what are and 
■what are not ' high crimes and misdemeanors' is to 
be ascertained by a recurrence to that great basis of 
American jurisprudence." 

And he adds to this that — 
"The power of the House to punish contempts, 
which arc breaches of privilege notdclined by posi- 
tive law, lias been upheld on the same ground; for 
if the House had no jurisdiction to punish until the 
acts had been previously ascertained and denned 
by positive law, it is clear that the process of arrest 
would be illegal." — Vol. 2, tee. 797. 

Again lie says: 

"The offenses to which the power of impeachment 
has been and is ordinarily applied as a remedy are 
of a political character. Not but that crimes of a 
strictly legal character fall within the scope of the 
power, but that it has a more enlarged operation, 
anil reaches what are aptly termed political offenses, 
growing out of personal misconduct, or gross neglect, 
or usurpation, or habitual disregard of the pub ic 
interests in the discharge of the duties of political 
office. These are so various in their character and 
so indefinable in their actual involutions that it is 
almost impossible to provide for them by positive 
law. They must bo examined on very broad and 
comprehensive principles of policy and duty." — Vol. 
2, sec. 764. 

If this concise and clear paragraph illus- 
trating the law of impeachment had been 
written in view of the facts which we are now 
called to consider, it would not have more 
clearly set forth in its general language the 
offenses of which the majority of the commit- 
tee complain. 

Again he says : 

"Congress have unhesitatingly adopted tho con- 
clusion that no previous statute is necessary to au- 
thorize an iinpcaehment for any official misconduct." 
* * * * "In tho few cases of impeachment 
wh'Hi havehitherto been tried no one of the charges 
has rested upon statutable misdemeanors." — Sec. 799. 

That was the opinion of Mr. Justice Story, 
writing about the year 1830, when the cases of 
Blount, of Chase, and of Pickering were before 
him and known to him. He says that, no one of 
the cases of impeachment which had then been 
tried rested upon statutable misdemeanors. 

I here close, Mr. Speaker, the authorities, 
and tur-n to the cases which the history of this 
country has furnished for the purpose of sus- 
taining by a distinct reference thereto the doc- 
trine which Judge Story maintained, and which 
is set forth in the report of the majority of the 
committee. 

The first case is that of William Blount, a 
Senator from the State of Tennessee in the 
Congress of the United States. He was im- 
peached by the House of Representatives upon 
the ground that he had excited the Indians of 
the Southwest against the Government of the 
United States, or at least to ally themselves 
through the agency of other persons with for- 
eign Powers in such a way as to promote a rup- 
ture with Spain. The charges against him rested 
entirely, or almost entirely, upon a letter writ- 
ten by himself and upon the testimony of a 
person who was in a certain sense his confidant 
and agent ; but I believe upon a careful exam- 



ination of the whole of the testimony it amounts 
to this only, that there was probable cause to 
believe that he had some purpose to alienate the 
Indians of the Southwest from the Government 
of the United States, and indirectly to interfere 
with the neutrality laws of 1794. But however 
that may be, whoever reads the charges made 
by the House of Representatives will be satis- 
fied that they did not set forth an indictable 
offense under any law of the United States. 
What did the House of Representatives do ? 
It impeached William Blount of high crimes 
and misdemeanors on the 3d day of J uly, 1797. 
The Senate, upon the question of law being 
raised whether a Senator was in such a sense a 
civil officer as to be liable to the process of 
impeachment, held that he was not a civil 
officer, and therefore the case was disposed of 
upon a point of law. 

But what did the Senate do? By a vote of 
twenty-five to one they expelled William Blount 
from the Senate, and in the resolution of expul- 
sion it was expressly declared that he had been 
guilty of a high misdemeanor. Therefore iu 
the case of William Blount we have the judg- 
ment of the House of Representatives of 1797 
and the judgment of the Senate of 1797 that 
an offense which, as set forth in the charges 
preferred by the House, was not an indictable 
offense, was nevertheless a high misdemeanor. 
Judge Story, in commenting upon the action 
' of the Senate, says: 

"It may be supposed that the first charge in tho 
article of impeachment against William Llount was 
a statutable offense, but on an accurate examination 
of tho actof 1791 it will be found not to have beonso." 

The next case is that of Judge Chase, an 
associate justice of the Supreme Court of the 
United States, a signer of the Declaration of 
Independence, a member of the Convention 
that framed the Constitution of the United 
States, a learned lawyer, present, making his 
answer and managing his own cause before the 
Senate. Upon the eighth article there were 
nineteen votes in the Senate for conviction and 
fifteen for acquittal. He had been impeached 
by the House of Representatives for high crimes 
and misdemeanors. By a majority of the Sen- 
ate, but not by the requisite two thirds major- 
ity, it was declared that under the eighth article 
he was guilty of high crimes and misdemean- 
ors. What is set up in the eighth article? If 
the House will bear with me I think it would 
be not uninstructive to listen to the concise 
statement of the grounds on which the House 
of Representatives, in lSO^proceeded to carry 
the case of Judge Chase before the Senate of 
the United States. 

The eighth article. is in these words : 

"And whereas mutual respect and confidence be- 
tween the Government of the United States and those 
of the individual States, and between the people and 
those governments, respectively, are highly condu- 
cive to that public harmony without which there can 
be no public happiness, yet the s lid Samuel Chase, 
disregarding the duties and dignity of his judicial 
character, did, at the circuit court for the district <sf 
Maryland, held at Baltimore in the month of May, 
1805, pervert his official right an 1 duty to address the 
grand jury then and there assembled, on the inatters 



10 



coming within the province of tbo said jury, for the 
purpose of delivering to tho said grand jury au intem- 
perate and inflammatory political harangue, with 
intent to excite the fears and resentment of the said 
grand jury, and of the good people of Maryland 
against their State government and constitution, a 
conduct highly censurable in any, but peculiarly 
indecent and unbecoming in a judge of tho Supreme 
Court of the United States; and, moreover, that tne 
3aid Samuel Chase, then and there, under pretense 
of exercising his judicial right to address the said 
grand jury, as aforesaid, did, in a manner highly 
unwarrantable, endeavor to excito the odium of the 
said grand jury, and of the good people of Maryland 
against the Government of the United States by 
delivering opinions which, even if the judiciary were 
competent to their expression, on a suitable occasion 
and in a proper manner, were, at that time, and as 
delivered by him, highly indecent, extra-judicial, 
and tending to prostitute the high judicial character 
with which he was invested to the low purpose of 
an electioneering partisan." 

That was the eighth of the articles pre- 
ferred in 1804 by the House of Representa- 
tives of the United States against a justice of 
the Supreme Court of the United States, and 
he did not, upon the record, venture to risk 
his case upon the question of law. He took 
the judgment of the Senate upon the whole 
question, the law and the fact combined ; and 
by a vote of four only escaped conviction of 
high crimes and misdemeanors upon the arti- 
cle, which I have now read, from the first to 
the last words thereof. 

The next case was that of Judge Pickering, 
of New Hampshire. I will read the fourth of 
the articles upon which he was convicted. I 
will say here, what perhaps I might have said 
elsewhere, that we stand, not upon the doc- 
trine that indictable offenses by the statutes of 
the United States are not under some circum- 
stances and when of a certain character im- 
peachable, but if we find in the proceedings 
of our ancestors that on any occasion in any 
array of articles against an offender there is a 
single article which does not set forth an indicta- 
ble offense, and the party was convicted upon 
that article, it sustains our position as fully 
as though none of the articles set forth an 
indictable offense. Therefore it is with great 
confidence that I call the attention of the 
House to this particular article against Judge 
Pickering, which does not contain an indicta- 
ble offense under the laws of the United States. 
I suppose it would be difficult to frame a statute 
of the United States which would make the 
substance of this charge an indictable offense. 
The fourth article upon which Judge Pickering 
was tried and convicted is as follows: 

" That whereas for the due, faithful, and impartial 
administration of justice, temperance and sobriety 
are essential qualities in tho character of a judge, 
yet the said John Pickering, being a man of loose 
morals and intemperate habits, on the 11th and 12th 
days of November, in the year 1802, being then judge 
of the district court in and for the district of New 
Hampshire, did appear upon the bench of the said 
court for the purpose of administering justice in a 
state of total intoxication, produced by tho fr.-e and 
intemperate use of inebriating liquors; and did then 
and there frequently, in a mostprofano and indecent 
manner, invoke the name of the Supreme Being, to 
the evil example of all the good citizens of the Uni- 
ted States, and was then and there guilty of other 
high misdemeanors disgraceful to his own character 
ttsa judge, and degrading to tho honor and dignity 
of the United States." 



These were the ideas which our ancestors 
entertained of the character of a public officer. 
They felt that the dignity of the nation required 
that a judge should be clear in his high office, 
Upon that article, containing no one element 
of an indictable offense by any law of the 
United States then existing, he was found 
guilty and removed from his office. 

Before* passing from the case of Judge Pick- 
ering I desire to call attention to a view taken 
of his trial by the minority of the committee. 
Upon the question "guilty" or "not guilty" 
of the charges set out in the fourth article the 
yeas were l l J and the nays 7. It is stated sub- 
stantially in the report of the minority (I do 
not profess to quote the exact words) that the 
finding was, in a certain sense, a political and 
partisan judgment. It may be true that the 
men who voted for the conviction of Judge 
Pickering were of one party ; but I think the 
record shows that it was not by one party that 
he was removed from office. Five Senators, 
members of the court, refused to vote. If those 
five had voted in the negative Judge Pickering 
would have been acquitted. Why did those 
five gentlemen refuse to vote? The record 
shows. The son of Judge Pickering sent a 
memorial to the President of the Senate, setting 
forth that his father was then insane ; that he was 
insane when he exhibited himself intoxicated 
upon the bench ; that for two years previous to 
that time he had been insane ; and that therefore 
he was not responsible for what he had done. 

It is important for the House to see how 
these five men, who had it in their power to 
save Judge Pickering from conviction by the 
Senate, to save his reputation, acted on that 
occasion. Senators Armstrong, Bradley, Stone, 
Dayton, and White retired from the court, and 
the record shows that the two last, Dayton and 
White, did this, not because they believed Judge 
Pickering guilty of high crimes and misde- 
meanors, (leaving it to be inferred that Arm- 
strong, Bradley, and Stone did believe him 
guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors,) but 
because they did not choose to be compelled to 
give so solemn a vote upon a form of question 
which they considered unfair and calculated to 
preclude them from giving any distinct and ex- 
plicit opinion upon the true and most important 
point in the case, namely, as to the insanity of 
Judge Pickering, and whether the charges con- 
tained in the articles of impeachment, if true, 
amounted in him — in him — to high crimes and 
misdemeanors ; thereby upon the record admit- 
ting thatif the question of insanity had not been 
raised there would have been no doubt as to 
the character of the offenses charged as high 
crimes aud misdemeanors. Senator Dayton, 
one of the Senators who retired, said: 

"They were simply to be allowed to veto whether 
Judge Pickering wasguilty ascharged — that is, guilty 
of the facts charged in each article— aye or no. If 
voted guilty of the facts, the sentence was to follow, 
without any previous question whether those facts 
amounted to a high crime or misdemeanor. The latout 
reason of this course was too obvious. There were 
members who were disposed to give sentence of re- 
moval against this unhappy judge upon the ground 
of the facts alleged and proved, who could uoU-how- 



11 



ever, conscientiously vote that they amounted to high 
crimes and misdemeanors, especially when commit- 
ted by a man proved at tho very time to be insane, 
and to have boon so evor since, even to tho present 
moment." 

It therefore is clear, I think, from the action 
orf the court in the case of Judge Pickering, 
that there was really no substantial difference 
of opinion upon the main question in which 
we are now concerned, which is, not whether 
Judge Pickering was insane, but whether the 
fourth article, one of the articles on which he 
was convicted, set forth impeachable high 
crimes and misdemeanors. Therefore, not- 
withstanding there may have been an irregu- 
larity, an informality, even an impropriety in 
the character of the question put to the court, 
it still remains true that upon the record a 
majority of more than two thirds of that court 
believed that the fourth article charged the 
respondent with impeachable high crimes and 
misdemeanors. 

I come now to the last case — a very recent 
one — the case of Judge Humphreys, who in 
the year 1801 was removed from his office as 
judge of the district courtof Tennessee. Judge 
Humphreys was convicted upon each of the 
seven articles which were presented before the 
Senate, with the exception of a portion of one 
of the specifications under one of the articles. 
The first article on which he was convicted 
(and we are compelled to assume that if it had 
been the only article he would have been con- 
victed and removed from ollice) does not — and 
1 speak with great confidence — set forth an 
indictable offense. Trespassing as I know J 
do upon the patience of the House, I still think 
that the view of the case I am presenting would 
be incomplete if I did not read that article in 
full to the House that I may have its judgment 
upon the question whether or not the offense 
set forth is indictable. 

The first article was in these words : 

"That, regardless of his duties as a citizen of the 
United States, and unmindful of the duties of his 
said ollice, and in violation of the sacred obligation 
of his official oath, 'to administer justice without 
respect to persons.' 'and faithfully and impartially 
discharge all theduties incumbent upon him as judge 
of the district court of the United .States for the sev- 
eral districts of tho State of Tennessee, agreeable to 
the Constitution and laws of the United States,' the 
said West H. Humphreys, on the 29th day of Decem- 
ber, A. D. 1860, in the city of Nashville, in said State, 
the said West H. Humphreys then being a citizen of 
the United States, and owing allegiance thereto, and 
then and there being judge of the district court of 
the United States for the several districts of said 
State, at a public meeting on the day and year last 
aforesaid, held in said city of Nashville, and in the 
hearing of divers persons then there present, did 
endeavor by public speech to incite revolt and re- 
bellion within said State against the Constitution 
and Government of the United States, and did then 
and there publicly declare that it was the right of 
the people of said State, by an ordinance of seces- 
sion, to absolve themselves from all allegiance to the 
Government of the United States, the Constitution 
and laws thereof." 

The offense with which Humphreys is charged 
in this article was committed on the 29th day 
of December, 1800, before the fall of Sumter, 
and when only one or two States had passed 
an ordinance of secession. The declaration 
was merely a declaration in a public speech 



that the State of Tennessee had the right to 
secede. That the article sets forth an impeach- 
able offense I do not doubt; but no lawyer 
will maintain that Judge Humphreys could 
have been indicted for treason or for any other 
crime under the laws of the United States for 
what in this article is alleged as having been 
said by him, or for what he did say, or, in fine, 
for anything that he could have said in a pub- 
lic speech at Nashville at that time. Yet the 
House and the Senate of 1861 found that this 
aritcle set forth " impeachable high crimes and 
misdemeanors" under the Constitution of the 
United States, and by a two-thirds majority 
of the Senate he was convicted and removed 
from office. 

Mr. Speaker, my discussion of the law is 
ended. The view that I have attempted to 
maintain, however imperfectly presented, is 
strong in the principles of American jurispru- 
dence. Those principles are derived from the 
English common law, and by the letter and 
spirit of the Constitution are transferred to and 
made a part of our system of public policy. 

We stand firmly upon the authorities on this 
side of the Atlantic and on the other. We fol- 
low the practice of our ancestors, the men who 
framed the Constitution, and who may be pre- 
sumed to have known their own intention, and 
to have been able to express that intention in 
appropriate words. 

I turn now to the facts of the case. If the 
position I have taken is sound, that the mean- 
ing of the phrase "high crimes and misde- 
meanors" is to be ascertained by reference to 
the principles of the English common law of 
crimes, Blackstone's definition, "that a crime 
or misdemeanor is an act committed or omitted 
in violation of a public law either forbidding or 
commanding it" becomas important. I stand 
upon this definition of the great writer upon 
English law as the connecting link between 
the theory of the law that I maintain and the 
facts which in this case are proved. 

It is to be observed in connection with Black- 
stone's definition that in our system the Con- 
stitution and the statutes are the "public law" 
of which he speaks, and any act done by the Pres- 
ident which is forbidden by the law or by the 
Constitution, or the omission by him to do'what 
is by the lawor the Constitution commanded, 
is a " high crime and misdemeanor," and ren- 
ders him liable to impeachment and removal 
from office. 

He is amenable to the House and the Sen- 
ate in accordance with the great principles of 
public law of which the Constitution of the 
United States is the foundation. And it is true 
in a higher and better sense than it is true of 
the statutes that the President of the United 
States is bound to support the Constitution, 
the vital part of which, in reference to the pub- 
lic affairs of the countr}', is that he shall take 
care that the laws be faithfully executed, and he 
violates that great provision of the Constitution 
especially when he himself disregards the law 
either by doing that which is forbidden or 
neglecting that which he is commanded to do. 

Sir, in approaching the discussion of the 



12 



transactions of which we complain I labor 
under great difficulties, such as are incident to 
the case. The President has in his hands the 
immense patronage of the Government. Its 
influence is all-pervading. The country was 
disappointed, no doubt, in the report of the 
committee, and very likely this House partici- 
pated in the disappointment, that there was no 
specific, heinous, novel offense charged upon 
and proved against the President of the Uni- 
ted States. It is in the very nature of the case 
that no such heinous offense could be proved. 
If we understand the teachings of the succes- 
sive acts which are developed in the voluminous 
report of the testimony, and if we understand 
the facts which are there developed, they all 
point to one conclusion, and that is that the 
offense with which the President is charged, 
and of which I believe by history he will ulti- 
mately be convicted, is lhat he used as he had 
the opportunity, and misused as necessity and 
circumstances dictated, the great powers of 
the nation with which he was intrusted, for 
the purpose of reconstructing this Govern- 
ment in t lie interest of the rebellion, so that 
henceforth this Union, in its legitimate con- 
nection, in its relations, in its powers, in its 
historical character, should be merely the con- 
tinuation of the Government which was organ- 
ized at Montgomery and transferred to ltich- 
mond. 

If, sir, this statement unfolds the nature of 
the case, there would not be found any partic- 
ular specific act which would disclose the 
whole of the transaction. It was only by a 
series of acts, by a succession of events, by par- 
ticipation direct or indirect in numerous trans- 
actions, some of them open and some of them 
secret, that this great scheme was carried on and 
far on towards itsfinal consummation. Hence 
it happens that when we present a particular 
charge it is one which for a long time has been 
before the public. The country has heard of it 
again and again. Men do not see in that par- 
ticular offense any great enormity. Then we 
are told that this particular act was advised by 
this Cabinet officer, and that act assented to by 
another Cabinet officer. This matter was dis- 
cussed in Cabinet meeting, the other was con- 
sidered in a side chamber, and therefore the 
President is not alone responsible for anything 
that has been done. But, sir, I assert that 
whoever else may be responsible witk him, 
he is responsible for himself. Any other 
theory is destructive to public liberty. We 
understand the relations which subsisted be- 
tween the President and his Cabinet officers. 
The tenure-of-office act gave the latter a degree 
of independence. But whatever were the sub- 
sisting relations the President cannot shield 
himself by their counsel, and claim immunity 
for open, known, and willful violations of the 
laws of the land. I do not speak now of errors 
of judgement, butof open and avowed illegal acts 
personally done or authorized by himself. But 
he has not always had even the countenance 
of his Cabinet officers. The test- oath was sus- 
pended by the President against the opinion of 
Attorney General Speed. If Cabinet officers 



have been concerned in these illegal transac- 
tions I have for them, to a large extent, the same 
excuse that I have for myself, the same that I 
have for the members of this House and for 
the people of this country. In the beginning 
they did not understand the President's char- 
acter, capacity, and purposes. 

His capacity has not been comprehended by 
the country. Violent sometimes in language, 
indiscreet in manner, impulsive in action, un- 
wise often in declamation, he is still animated 
by a persistency of purpose which never yields 
under any circumstances, but seeks by means 
covert and tortuous as well as open and direct 
the accomplishment of the purpose of his life. 

I care not to go into an examination — 
indeed, I have neither the time nor the taste 
for it now — of the tortuous ways by which he 
has controlled men who in the public estimation 
are superior to himself. But my excuse for 
Cabinet officers, for members of Congress, for 
the country, is that in 18G5, when he issued 
his proclamation for the reorganization of 
North Carolina, no one understood him. 
General Grant in his testimony says that he 
considered the plan temporary, to be approved 
or annulled - when Congress should meet in 
December. But when Congress assembled 
the President told us that the work was 
ended; that the rebellious States were restored 
to the Union. He then planted himself firmly 
upon the proposition laid down in his North 
Carolina proclamation in defiance of the Con- 
stitution ; in defiance of the decision of the 
Supreme Court of the United Stales that the 
power was in Congress to decide whether the 
government of a State was republican or 
not; in defiance of the cardinal principle of 
the sovereignity of the people through Con- 
gress, lie ratified substantially in his mes- 
sage that which he had assumed merely in the 
proclamation of the 29th of May, that he was 
the United States for the purpose of deciding 
whether the government of a State was repub- 
lican or not. 

Sir, if this whole case rested merely upon 
that assumption, that exercise of power, I 
maintain that it would bring him specifically 
and exactly within the control of this House, 
for the purpose of arraigning him before the 
Senate upon the charge of seizing and usurping 
the greatest power of the legislative depart- 
ment of the Government, unless it be that of 
taxation, which he has also usurped and exer- 
cised in defiance of the Constitution. But even 
then the nature of the proceeding was not fully 
understood, and his motives were only partially 
disclosed. The public mind did not compre- 
hend the character and extentof theusurpation. 

Thus it was that his motive was concealed. 
He was not understood, and the charity of the 
country silenced suspicions of evil. But he 
moved on step by step. The country in the 
mean while was under the influence of his bold 
declarations, made frequently from the 14th of 
April to about the 1st of July, 1805; declara- 
tions which, even in the coldest of us, made the 
blood kindle in our veins, as he set forth the 
punishment to which the rebels were entitled. 



13 



Even the most violent of the northern people, 
they who had suffered from the war, those 
who had offered their sons, their brothers, and 
their husbands in sacrifice for the Republic, 
shuddered when they listened to his declama- 
tion as to the power and duty of this Govern- 
ment to punish those who had been engaged in 
the rebellion. But from July, 18G5, his con- 
duct and his policy have been entirely opposed 
to the declarations made in the spring and early 
summer of that year. I see in those declara- 
tions only this: that they were designed and 
intended, when they were uttered, to conceal 
from the public the great purpose he had in 
view, which was to wrest this Government 
from the power of the loyal people of the North 
and turn it over to the tender mercies of those 
who had brought upon the country all the hor- 
rors of civil war. 

I pass, sir, to the testimony of Judge Mathews, 
of Ohio, a person whom I never saw but once, 
and of whom I know nothing except what the 
record discloses. He was an officer of the 
northern Army, and he has been a judge of 
some of the courts in Cincinnati or vicinity. 
He says that in the month of February, 1865, 
when Mr. Johnson was passing from Tennes- 
see to Washington to take the oath of office as 
Vice President, he called upon him at the 
Burnett House. The conversation was appa- 
rently unimportant, but it discloses a purpose 
on the part of Mr. Johnson. He said to Judge 
Mathews, "You and I were old Democrats." 
"Yes," replied Judge Mathews. Says Mr. 
Johnson, "I will tell you what it is: if the coun- 
try is ever to be saved it is lo be done through the 
old Democratic party." That was in February, 
1805. He had then received the suffrages of a 
free and generous people. They had taken him 
from Tennessee, where he would have had no 
abiding place but for the armies of the Repub- 
lic that protected him in his person and prop- 
erty. He was then entering upon the second 
office in the gift of the people, chosen by the 
great party of power and of progress in the 
country, which had saved the Union in its 
days of peril. No act had been by them done 
which could possibly have alienated him from 
them. Jefferson Davis was still at Richmond. 
The armies of Lee menaced the capital of his 
country. Andrew Johnson was approaching 
that capital for the purpose of taking the oath 
of office. That capital was merely a fortified 
garrison. He then declares that the country 
cannot be saved except by the old Democratic 
party. 

What was the old Democratic party? It was 
the party of the South ; it was made up of 
those men in the southern country who entered 
into the rebellion. That casual expression 
dropped at the Burnett House in Cincinnati in 
February, 1865, discloses his mysterious course 
from that day to this. I do not speak now of 
those Democrats of the North who stood by 
the flag of the country, who maintained the 
cause of the Union, but I speak of that old 
Democratic party of which he spoke, whose 
inspiring principle was devotion to slavery, 
hatred to republican institutions and the cause 



of the Union and of liberty. It was to them 
that Mr. Johnson, in February, 1865, turned 
his eyes for the salvation of the country. He 
was then Vice President only, but his career 
as President illustrates his devotion to the pur- 
pose he then entertained. 

I come now to a brief statement of those 
acts of the President which disclose his mo- 
tives and establish his guilt. First he and his 
friends sedulously promulgated the idea that 
what he did in the year 1865 was temporary. 

Then came his message of December, 1865, 
which discfosed more fully his ulterior purpose. 

Then came the speech of February 22, 1866, 
in which he arraigned the Congress of the 
United States collectively and individually, 
and, as I believe, made use of expressions 
which uttered by a sovereign of Great Britain 
in reference to Parliament and to individual 
members of Parliament would have led to most 
serious consequences, if not to the overthrow of 
the Government. 

Then came his vetoes of the various recon- 
struction measures. I know very well that it 
will be said that the President has the veto 
power in his hands. To be sure he has ; but 
it is a power to be exercised, like the discretion 
of a court, in good faith, for proper purposes, 
in honest judgment and good conscience, and 
not persistently in the execution of a scheme 
which is in contravention of the just authority 
of the legislative branch of the Government. 
It was exercised, however, by the President 
for the purpose of preventing reconstruction by 
congressional agency and by authority of law. 

Then came his interference by his message 
of the 22d .of June, 1866, and by other acts, all 
disclosing and furthering a purpose to prevent 
the ratification of the pending constitutional 
ameudment, a matter with which, as the Exec- 
utive of the country, he had no concern what- 
ever. The Constitution provides that the 
House and the Senate, by specified means, 
may propose amendments to the Constitu- 
tion : and if any subject is wholly separated 
from executive authority or control it is this 
power to amend the Constitution of the United 
States. The Constitution reserves this power 
to Congress and to the people, excluding the 
President. In the same year he suspended 
the test-oath, against the advice of the Attorney 
General, and appointed men to office who, as 
he well knew, could not take that oath. The 
oath was prescribed for the purpose of protect- 
ing the country against the presence of disloyal 
persons in office — a measure necessary to the 
public safety. Can any act be more repre- 
hensible? Can any act be more criminal? 
Can any act be more clearly within Blackstone's 
definition of " crimes and misdemeanors." 

Then follows his surrender of abandoned 
lands. In 1865 we passed the first Freed- 
men's Bureau bill, in which we set apart the 
abandoned lands for the negroes and refugees 
of the South. In violation of law and without 
authority of law he has restored them to their 
former rebel owners. This class of property 
was of the value of many millions of money. 

We had captured in the South vast amounts 



14 



of railway property. All these millions of 
property he has turned over to their former 
rebel proprietors. In many instances, as in 
the case of one railway, the Government itself, 
under his special direction and control, in 
the State of Tennessee constructed fifty-four 
miles of railway at an expense of more than 
two million dollars. This railway, with others, 
was turned over without consideration, without 
power to make reclamation or to obtain com- 
pensation, and all without authority of law. 
We possessed a vast amount of railing stock 
used on southern roads daring the war, some 
of it captured from the enemy. The rolling 
stock captured he restored without money and 
withoutprice. Other portions ofit, constructed 
by the Government of the United States, or 
purchased of manufacturers or of railroad com- 
panies, he sold without authority of law to cor- 
porations that, according to the principles of 
law, were insolvent. When the time arrived 
for payment to the Government many of them 
neglected to comply with the conditions of sale. 
One of those corporations, the Nashville and 
Chattanooga railroad, Tennessee, made an 
exhibit by which it appeared they had money 
on hand to pay the Government what they owed 
it. The Officers of the Government demanded 
payment, and threatened to take possession of 
the road in case of further neglect. President 
Johnson, by his simple order, and that, as far as 
is known, without consultation with any member 
of the Cabinet, authorized, or rather directed, a 
delay or postponement in the collection of this 
debt. Agreeably to a previous order which he 
had issued, the interest on the bonds guaran- 
tied by the State of Tennessee to this road, 
which had been due three or four years, were 
then paid out of money which upon every 
principle of reason, equity, and law belonged 
to the Government. The money had been 
earned by the use of the rolling stock which 
the Government had furnished. 

Mr. Johnson's order was in utter disregard 
of the great principle that of all creditors the 
Government is to be first paid. Under no cir- 
cumstances does the law concede to the citizen 
the right of payment until the claim of the 
sovereign is satisfied. 

One important fact in connection with this 
transaction is that the President himself was 
the holder of these Tennessee State bonds, 
issued for the benefit of this road, to the 
amount of either nineteen thousand or thirty 
thousand dollars; and that of that money, 
which upon the contract and by every prin- 
ciple of law was due to the United States, 
he received past interest for about four years. 
A small matter, you may say ; a small matter 
the country may say ; but in a public trust he 
had no right, in the first place, to make sale 
of this property ; secondly, he had no right to 
postpone payment, and above all he had no 
right to delay payment for the purpose of re- 
ceiving to himself that which belonged to the 
Government. Nor is it any excuse for him 
that there were other holders, whether loyal 
or rebel, who shared the benefits of this trans- 
action. 



Then there is connected with these proceed- 
ings other public acts, such as the appointment 
Of provisional governors for North Carolina 
and the other nine States without any author- 
ity of law. Not only that, but he authorized 
the payment of salaries without authority of 
law. Not only that, he ordered payment from 
the War Department of those salaries, not- 
withstanding there had been no appropriation 
by law, and notwithstanding the Constitution 
of the United States says that no money shall 
be drawn from the Treasury but in consequence 
of an appropriation by law. 

When you bring all these acts together ; when 
yon consider what he has said ; when you con- 
sider what he has done ; when you consider that 
he has appropriated the public property for 
the benefit of rebels ; when you consider that in 
every public act, as far as we can learn, from 
May, 1805, to the present time, all has tended 
to this great result, the restoration of the rebels 
to power under and in the Government of the 
country ; when you consider all these things, 
can there be any doubt as to his purpose, or 
doubt as to the criminality of his purpose and 
his responsibility under the Constitution? 

It may not be possible, by specific charge, to 
arraign him for this great crime, but is he there- 
fore to escape? These offenses which I have 
enumerated, which are impeachable — and I 
have enumerated but a part of them — are the 
acts, the individual acts, the subordinate crimes, 
the tributary offenses to the accomplishment 
of the great object which he had in view. But 
if, upon the body of the testimony, you are satis- 
fied of his purpose, and if you are satisfied that 
these tributary offenses were committed as 
the means of enabling him to accomplish this 
great crime, will you hesitate to try him and 
convict him upon those charges of which he is 
manifestly guilty, even if they appear to be of 
inferior importance, knowing that they were in 
themselves misdemeanors, that they were trib- 
utary offenses, and that in this way, and in this 
way only, can you protect the State against the 
final consummation of his crime? We have 
not yet seen the end of this contest. 

I am not disposed to enter into the region 
of prophecy, but we can understand the logio 
of propositions. The propositions which the 
President has laid down in his last message 
and elsewhere will lead to certain difficulty if 
they are acted upon. Whether they will be 
acted upon 1 cannot say. The first proposi- 
tion is, that under some circumstances an act 
of Congress may be in his judgment so unconsti- 
tutional that he will violate the law and utterally 
disregard legislative authority. This is an as- 
sumption of power which strikes at the found- 
ation of the Government. The Constitution 
authorizes Congress to pass bills. When they 
have been passed they are presented to the 
President for his appro'val or objection. If he 
objects to a bill, for constitutional or other 
reason, he returns it to the House in which it 
originated ; and then and there his power over 
the subject is exhausted. If the House and 
Senate by a two-thirds vote pass a bill it 
becomes a law, and until it is repealed by 



15 



the same authority or annulled by the Supreme 
Court the President has but one duty, and 
that is to obey it; and no consideration 
or opinion of his as to its constitutionality 
will defend or protect him in any degree. 
The opposite doctrine is fraught with evils of 
the most alarming character to the country. 
If the President may refuse to execute or may 
violate a law because he thinks it unconstitu- 
tional in a certain particular, another Presi- 
dent may disregard it for another reason ; and 
thus the Government becomes not a Govern- 
ment of laws, but a Government of men. 
Every civil oilieer has the same right in this 
respect as the President. If the latter has the 
right to disregard a law because he thinks it 
unconstitutional the Secretary of the Treasury 
and every subordinate has the same right. Is 
that doctrine to prevail in this country? 

But coupled with that declaration is another 
declaration, that the negroes of the South have 
no right whatever to vote. Our whole plan of 
reconstruction is based upon the doctrine that 
the loyal people of the South, black and white, 
are to vote. Now, while there is no evidence 
conclusively establishing the fact, it is still 
undoubtedly true that thousands and tens of 
thousands of white men in the States recently 
in rebellion have abstained from participation 
in the work of calling the conventions because 
they have been stimulated by the conduct of 
the President to believe that they will ulti- 
mately be able to secure governments from 
which the negro population will be excluded. 
What is our condition to-day? Governments 
are being Bel up in the ten States largely by the 
black people and without the concurrence of 
the whites, that concurrence being refused, to 
a large extent, through the influence of the. 
President. Are we to leave this officer, if we 
judge him to be guilty of high crimes and mis- 
demeanors, in control of the Army and the 
Navy, with his declaration upon the record 
that under certain circumstances he will not 
execute the laws ? He has the control of the 
Army. Do you not suppose that next Novem- 
ber a single soldier at each polling place in the 
southern country, aided by the whites, could 
prevent the entire negro population from voting? 
And if it is for the interest of the President to 
do so have we any reason to anticipate a differ- 
ent course of conduct? At any rate, such is 
the logic of the propositions which he has pre- 
sented to us. If that logic be followed, the 
next presidential election will be heralded by 
civil war, or the next inauguration of a Presi- 
dent of the United States will be the occasion 
for the renewal of fratricidal strife. 

Mr. Speaker, we are at present involved in 
financial difficulties. I see no way of escape 
while Mr. Johnson is President of the United 
States. I assent to much of what he has said 
in his message concerning the effects of the 
tenure-of-officeact. Prom my experience in the 
internal revenue office I reach the conclusion 
that it is substantially impossible to collect the 
taxes while the tenure-of-office act is in force ; 
and I have no doubt that whenever a new Ad- 
ministration is organized, of whatever party it 



may be, some of the essential provisions of 
that act will be changed. The reason, Mr. 
Speaker, of the present difficulty is due to the 
faet that the persons engaged in pfandering ilie 
revenues of the country are more or less asso- 
ciated criminally with, public officers. The 
character of those public officers can be sub- 
stantially known in the internal revenue office 
andin the Treasury Department; but if theSec- 
retary of the Treasury and the President before 
they can remove officers against whom probable 
cause exists are obliged to wait until they 
have evidence which will satisfy the Senate of 
their guilt the very process of waiting for that 
evidence to be procured exhausts the public 
revenues. There is but one way of overcom- 
ing this difficulty. When the President, the 
Secretary of the Treasury, and the Commis- 
sioner of Internal Revenue are in harmony, 
and the Commissioner is satisfied from the cir- 
cumstances existing that an officer is in collu- 
sion with thieves, he can ask the President for 
the removal of that man ; and then there should 
exist the power of removal by a stroke of the 
pen. Neither the official nor his friends should 
know the reason therefor. Nothing so inspires 
officials with zeal in the discharge of their 
duties as to feel that if they are derelict their 
commissions may at any moment be taken from 
them. 

. But what is our position to-day? Can this 
House and the Senate, with the knowledge 
that they have of the President's purposes and 
of the character of the men who surround him, 
give him the necessary power? Do they not 
feel that if he be allowed such power these 
places will be given to worse men ? Hence I 
say that with Mr. Johnson in office from this 
time until the 4th of March, 1869, there is no 
remedy for these grievances. These are con- 
siderations only why we should not hesitate 
to do that which justice authorizes us to do if 
we believe that the President has been guilty 
of impeachable offenses. 

Mr. Speaker, all rests here. To this House 
is given under the Constitution the sole power 
of impeachment ; and this power of impeach- 
ment furnishes the only means by which wo 
can secure the execution of the laws. And 
those of our fellow-citizens who desire the 
administration of the law ought to sustain this 
House while it executes that great law which 13 
in its hands and which is nowhere else, while it 
performs a high and solemn duty resting upon it 
by which that man who has been the chief vio- 
lator of law shall be removed , and without which 
there can be no execution of the law anywhere. 
Therefore the whole responsibility, whatever it 
may be, for the non-execution of the laws of 
the country is, in the presence of these great 
facts, upon this House. If this House believes 
that the President has executed the laws of the 
country, that he has obeyed the provision of 
the Constitution to take care that the laws be 
faithfully executed, then it is our duty to sus- 
tain him, to lift up his hands, to strengthen his 
arms; but if we believe, as upon this record 
I think we cannot do otherwise than believe, 
that he has disregarded that great injunction 



16 



of the Constitution to take care that the laws 
be faithfully executed, there is but one remedy. 
The remedy is with this House, and it is nowhere 
else. If we neglect or refuse to use our powers 
when the case arises demanding decisive action 
the Government ceases to be a Government of 
laws and becomes a Government of men. 

But, sir, in conclusion, I am prepared to 
accept the judgment of this House as a patri- 
otic judgment. I shall then wait for the teach- 
ing of events. I do not despair of a great 
people. They can endure trials. They can 
overcome obstacles. If we err, they, even 
through the suffering so caused, will assert 
finally the authority of justice and the majesty 
of law. Let nothing be done under the influ- 
ence of passion, prejudice, or political excite- 
ment. But the vindication of' the laws is a 
duty, and it often falls to the lot of a political 
party to perform it. My own convictions are 
clear. I see my country just emerging from 
civil war, distracted, torn, and bleeding ; 
her people heavily taxed and the public rev- 
enues plundered ; her currency depreciated ; 
her credit impaired, so that in the markets of 
Europe she is associated with Austria, Turkey, 
and Spain. Millions of her people, butrecently 
in rebellion, still bold, defiant, aggressive ; and 
millions more loyal, dutiful, and hopeful, too, 
even when peril menaces, after two years of 
struggle, still without security, and all this, 
as I believe, in consequence of the doings and 
designs of the President of the United States. 
Can I hesitate ; can I yield my judgment to 
circumstances which in the nature of the case 
must be temporary ? I will not ask this House 
to do its duty; that would not be decorous in 
me. It will do its d uty, and its duty will have 
been equally performed whether the results 
harmonize with my judgment or not. 

But, sir, I may look beyond the present 
moment and assume that to be done which 
upon my judgment and conscience I think 
ought to be done. 

Consider how all the affairs of the country 
would be changed and improved. Civil gov- 
ernment would be restored speedily to ten 
States; the civil rights of all the people would 



be recognized and made secure ; the loyal 
men would exercise the great privilege of self- 
government, safe in their own power and in the 
benign protection of the national Government; 
those recently in rebellion would soon be re- 
stored to all their political privileges ; industry 
would be honored and well recompensed ; pro- 
duction, consumption, and trade immensely 
developed; the revenues of the country cofr 
lected ; public plunder no longer fostered as 
an art; taxes diminished; the public credit so 
improved that the questions depending upon 
the value of our currency would be settled 
without disturbance or violent legislation ; the 
Army reduced; and the power of the nation 
so augmented and everywhere respected as 
that a single ship-of-war would protect the 
commerce of the Mediterranean or of the Gulf 
of Mexico. 

These things are not and cannot now be, 
because the President is not " clear in his high 
office," disregarding, as he does, the injunction 
of the Constitution upon him to " take care thai 
the laws be faithfully executed." 

So mighty is the machinery of the Govern- 
ment that the weight of the President's hand 
upon the central lever affects the fortune of 
every citizen. With $150,000,000 in the Treas- 
ury, and unlimited power to accumulate and to 
disburse, a nod of his head makes his friends 
prosper while his enemies perish. In the pres- 
ence of this power, and surrounded as we are 
with evidence of the evil results of a policy 
which we have so long tolerated but never 
approved, are we to hesitate, to delay, to aban- 
don the field in the hope that by other means 
and by other agencies the final redemption of 
the nation is to be secured ? 

Believing that Andrew Johnson is guilty of 
high crimes and misdemeanors I have assented 
to, and by the direction of a majority of the 
Committee on the Judiciary reported, a res- 
olution for his impeachment. This resolution, 
upon my conscience and best judgment, I now 
support. 

In contemplation of the law, and upon tire 
facts, I believe him to be so guilty. And 
thereon I ask the judgment of the House. 



Printed at the Congressional Qlobo Office. 



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